10 March 2013

Atheist in a Foxhole


This is my experience as a teenage Marine who was totally convinced that he would die in combat before the night was over while alone in a dark, wet foxhole and contemplating whether God(s) existed or not.  Late 1969, Hill 55 area, Quang Nam Province, Republic of Viet Nam. 
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A common allegation amongst god-fearing folks often reads like this:  “There are no atheists in the foxholes” – implying that the experience of fear when coming immediately close to near-certain death in combat will change all skeptics into true believers.  It implies that those who, in safer situations, may reject supernatural beliefs in deities, in beliefs in Heaven and Hell, and in Judgment Day, etc., will nevertheless change their tune when face to face with the immense looming probability of death, and they will opt for blind faith and plead to a god for deliverance.  Fear will turn them to faith.
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This is probably true for many.  But for me it has never been true, and any of these liars who claim that it is a universal truth where not in the same foxhole with me when such situations actually happened. 
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In combat zones, a sudden ambush (day or night) is electrifying beyond anything imaginable -- often emptying one's bladder and/or bowels -- and at those times questions of theology did not come up (at least to me), simply because you don’t have time to think about them.  I vividly remember one night, earlier in my tour (in the Hill 34 area), being pinned down by enemy automatic fire that came as close as six inches from my head – I still remember a buddy and me hugging the ground helplessly after we were caught by surprise, faces only a foot apart, while watching and hearing enemy tracer rounds whipping over each other’s heads.  At that time, and similar times of sudden danger, it never occurred to me to think about gods. 
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But it was much different when we had a long time to wait for near-certain death, to wait and to think, to endure those long, long stretches of time when the enemy was undoubtedly right there upon us but invisible in the dark and close by in the silence, lusting to kill your sorry soul.  When will they hit us?  When will they overrun us?  How in the hell will we ever get out of this one alive?  Will I ever live to see another dawn?  Times like these – when one had time to think of looming death – were times of despair, but were sometimes also a chance for lucid philosophical reasoning.  There was one night that defines it and sums it all up for me. 
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 We had been constantly attacked every night by enemy assaults, often under their mortar and rocket barrage.  This particular night was a moonless one, dark, windy and raining extremely hard – a “black rain” – with zero visibility.  Several of us were pulled out of our familiar trenches to march over and beyond the hill to reinforce a perimeter on a distant northern ridge.  The terrain was completely unknown to us, rocky and uneven, so we each grasped onto the fighting harness of the man in front of us and marched – tripping and stumbling – on into the blackness.  Eventually we were briefed by a Gunnery Sergeant, who gave us the sobering straight dope:  intelligence said that there was a division of NVA (the tough North Vietnamese Army) in the province, moving under the heavy weather and intent upon overrunning all nearby fire bases.  Gunnies do not get rattled easily, but this one was very concerned. 
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We reinforcements were split up and assigned to various posts.  I was assigned to two Marines on a position on the dark perimeter, and, as I was the one most ignorant of the terrain, they assigned me to man a crawl-hole position (a shallow foxhole bunker) to man the Claymore mine detonators.  The only arms we had were our M-16s and some hand grenades.  (I had no M-79 this night.) 
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The foxhole was a low shallow bunker that one man could crawl into, with very low sandbag walls front, left and right, and a corrugated steel roof with sandbags overhead.  Lying on my belly I could easily look up over the walls.  It was filled up with rainwater and too small for comfort.  In front of my face on the front wall were three Claymore detonators, but I wasn’t sure where the mines were positioned in the wire in front of me.  My two fellow Marines said that they would take up positions left and right of me behind rocks, and that was the last human contact I had.  The rest of the night was one of long solitary darkness – before the shit hit the fan. 
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I lay on my belly in the water of the crawl-hole and waited with zero vision ahead because of the constant black rain.  Then long after midnight it started to happen.  Between gusts of wind I heard unmistakable running foot treads of many men running from my left to my right in front of me – out somewhere invisible beyond 30 meters in front and outside the wire.  I heard many heavy feet on wet earth, heard someone shouting in Vietnamese (as if in urgent commands), and heard the clanking sounds of many alloy metal rifle ammo magazines (AK-47) – heavily laden troops with multiple bandoleers of ammo.  The group that first ran by my front was at least a couple of dozen, a platoon.  Then silence.  And wait. 
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I did not detonate the Claymore mines, nor did any other foxholes along the line, because the enemy was not (to our knowledge) inside our wire yet.  Long-standing orders of the day (from Commander-in-Chief down) were for extreme fire-discipline, i.e., to minimize any actions that would give away our positions.  Do not fire without a definite target, do not give yourself away.  And Claymores have brilliant flashes. 
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Sometime later in that endless night, a second group of NVA troops (another platoon) ran heavily from my left to my right out in front of me with commanders yelling and bandoleers clanking (“ka-chunka-ka-chunka-chunka”).  Then it was black rain darkness, and again silence except for the wind and driving rain.  Where are they?  At what point in our perimeter will they attack?  We were waiting for them to overrun our positions and kill us all.  No target, no knowledge.  Silence.  Terror. 
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Because there was such a long wait time between events, I had time to think fully about the situation.  First, at this position on an isolated ridge, we were spread pathetically thin – and the enemy knew this – and in the black rain darkness they could cut through the wire and infiltrate our perimeter and kill all of us in this sector.  Their concentrated numbers, and our thin spread, put us in a losing position with no way out.  I could not imagine any scenario that would have me living to see dawn.  I would die this night – I accepted that as a complete certainty. 
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It was the long wait time that made it possible for me to be philosophical.  My mind was racing on three levels:  sensory alertness; tactical combat knowledge review; and philosophical thinking.
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On the first level, the sensory level, my eyes and ears were like radar, head moving back and forth trying to pick up sights (near impossible in the black rain) and sounds.  The wind and rain drowned out most sounds, and I felt cut off from all senses except lying alone in a hole filled with cold water.  I was hyper-alert and charged with adrenaline. 
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On the tactical level, I remembered everything taught in Infantry Training.  I fixed my bayonet, a pathetic six-inch thing for the M-16.  I also had a nicely balanced five-inch Pilot Survival Knife (which I had won in a drawing) which I stuck into a timber for quick reach.  I mentally rehearsed all the drills on clearing a jam in an M-16; deploying hand grenades; first-aid to stop bleeding; how to withstand the concussion of close explosions (hands tightly over ears, open mouth); and, most dreadful of all scenarios, hand-to-hand bayonet or knife fighting on slippery ground.  I thought that, although it was certain that I would die before dawn, I was grimly determined that I would fight tooth and nail to survive.  I will not go down without a fight! 
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On the philosophical level, consciousness was more unhurried, relaxed, and controlled, and because of the long silent dark wait after those first sounds of enemy movement, it was very thoroughly thought out. 
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My hybrid Zen/Hinayana Buddhist practice has always been an atheistic one with absolutely no supernatural beliefs such as reincarnation, deities, miracles, prayers, etc.  On this night it integrated my three consciousness levels of the sensory, the tactical, and the philosophical. 
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Philosophically, I am thinking:  I will die this night and never see another dawn.  (Meanwhile eyes and ears are like radar; tactical considerations are constantly available for review.)  Although I am not passively going out without a fight, a rational review of the situation points to my immediate death.  My life will end.  This is when people are said to analyze their beliefs about death. 
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What happens to a human when they die?  Is their conscious self (their “soul,” mind, esprit, or geist) extinguished, annihilated?  Or is it “reborn” somehow, surviving death in some mystical way such as “resurrection” or “reincarnation”?  Is theism true?  Are there gods?  Is there a Last Judgment?  Will I be sent to be tortured in Hell forever because I do not believe in a God or gods?  (I had been an atheist, completely lacking any belief in gods, since I was 17.)  This seemed like a good time to review these issues, and adrenaline was making me wide awake. 
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Many versions of Pascal’s Wager came clearly into my consciousness during this night.  E.g., if I lack belief and it turns out that gods are most probably a fantasy, then I lose nothing and have lived a life free of superstition.  But if I lack belief and it turns out that I’m wrong and that gods indeed do exist, then I am doomed to Hell, shit out of luck. 
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During this my last night alive, I looked carefully and fairly at all of the arguments I knew that asserted the Existence of God, and I found them seriously lacking.  All of them.  As death threatened me with severe immediacy, I decided that I was indeed going to die this night as an atheist – an “atheist in a foxhole”, thus falsifying that particular theist myth; this made me chuckle, while being fully aware of the dark irony of it.  But I would die with a rational confidence in my own honest and sovereign judgment. 
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I also thought that, even if I was mistaken and if God really did exist to judge me, he had to recognize that my lack of belief was an honest judgment on my part, honestly reasoned according to the evidence I had seen, or not seen, and with my complete openness and objectivity.  (And I saw faith, believing without evidence, as an act of telling a lie to oneself and to the world.)  If God still considered my lack of belief to be a terrible sin, in spite of my honest inquiries, and if he still thought me worthy of Hell, then he was an unjust tyrant with no moral right to run a universe of rational beings.  I would repudiate such a being for his utter unfairness, injustice and barbaric cruelty. 
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After as honest and thorough a philosophical/ theological review as I could undertake, I felt quite tranquil about the notions of God, life after death, Hell, “eternal destinies”, etc. – i.e., I rejected them as most probably being fantasies because I found no convincing evidence to believe them, and I saw death as most likely being nothing but dreamless annihilation of self.  (No brain, no consciousness.)  I was not afraid of death as an atheist.  My coming death, at only 19 years of age, was certainly too soon.  I had many things that I wanted to do in life, but I did not fear death itself.  And of course I still was determined to fight tooth and nail to survive.  This line of cool thinking under the night’s pressure left me feeling very complete, whole, and integrated. 
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Then a horribly sickening thought came to me:  knowledge of the effect upon my family – my mother, father, and my 14-year-old sister – when news of my death reached them.  This horror made me so nauseated that I almost puked.  I sobbed at the thought of their anguish.  Just thinking about it now, over 40 years later, brings tears to my eyes.  I still remember that stab of helpless grief for the grief that they would feel. 
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As it happened, I obviously did survive that night – and “God” had nothing to do with it unless he shamelessly plays random favorites:  I may have lived, but six other young Marines died that night.  Kids who had families back home.  Not even mentioning the brave Vietnamese enemy who died that night, and their families. 
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The black rain was still pouring down and obscuring everything.  Then, suddenly all hell broke loose.  All at once it became evident that NVA infantry had broken through our perimeter about 75 meters to my right.  The NVA had sent sappers in quietly with wire cutters, followed by sappers who used poles and ropes to spread and separate the wire to make a hole big enough for infantry infiltration.  It was all under the cover of the rainy darkness and the loud wind, and it was impossible to see or hear the sappers at work. 
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For me, it was a sudden shock awakening from my philosophical reveries.  Now was real-time terror – right here, right now – with no time to think about trivial cosmological speculations.  It was now all senses, practiced tactics, and cunning.  The NVA had breached our perimeter and suddenly started firing on us from behind the foxholes off to my right.  The black rain obscured everything except for the tracers of AK-47 rounds.  Tracers told that night’s entire story.  NVA tracers went into the two holes on either side of their breach in the wire, and a responding fire was evidenced by M-16 tracers from the Marines there, who were taken completely by surprise.  The Marines’ tracers gave away their positions, and their fire weakened as they were quickly overwhelmed and annihilated. 
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The NVA were pouring in and fanning out within the perimeter, as their constantly increasing volume of tracers revealed.  Then we suddenly had heavy incoming automatic fire from in front, from close outside the wire, as well as from the rear, from inside, and we were pinned down by this crossfire, faces in the mud.  It was overwhelming and faster than one would believe.  I was confined in my tiny, tight crawl-hole bunker and could not even begin to get a shot off.  If I detonated the Claymores now it would only reveal our exact positions with the big flashes and not do much harm to any enemy outside the wire.  Besides, it was happening too fast.  It looked like it would be over extremely soon with a bad ending for us.  I readied my bayonet and psyched up for the apocalypse.  Then we got unexpected assistance. 
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Unbeknown to me, there was a daytime observation tower on this ridge, behind us to the right, and it was manned this night by a Platoon Sergeant whose name I never got.  Wish I could have met him because he saved numerous Marine lives that night, including yours truly.  He had an M-60 machine-gun up in his tower with an A-gunner feeding him ammo belts, and this guy never let up.  Suddenly his tracers came down on the NVA within the perimeter – which gave away his position and caused them to fire up at him.  NVA tracers all tilted up at him immediately.  It was a wild fireworks show in the dark rain.  The machine-gunner in the tower shot in a series of long sweeping bursts and never fully paused until a 100 round belt had been spent, when there was a short pause as he secured another belt and then continued firing.  The pouring, blowing rain cooled his barrel enough that it did not burn out, and he just kept pouring lead into the infiltrators.  It was masterful work. 
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The machine-gun fire from the tower thinned out the NVA on the inside of the wire and broke their momentum, and then he directed fire at the hole in the wire where tracers indicated that they were still coming through.  He hosed them down with lead.  He backed up the incoming NVA at the bottleneck hole in the wire and stopped any more from coming in.  The NVA were stumbling over their comrades’ dead bodies and dying in heaps.  (Later we found them piled four-deep in the bottleneck.)  A mopping up within the perimeter was done, and the gap was secured.  The NVA still outside our perimeter knew they would not prevail and vanished into the rain before dawn. 
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Dawn came slowly because of the heavy overcast and rain, and I was shocked that I had seen the dawn of another day.  The two Marines on my position, one to my left and one to my right, spoke, saying, “I’m coming in.  Don’t shoot me.”  We just shook our heads at the long crazy night just past.  Eventually a Marine came by to guide me and other temporary reinforcements back to our entrenchments over the hill.  We shuffled back to whatever semi-dry digs we could find, and I slept almost the entire day with adrenaline burnout. 
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Six Marines died that night, the guys on two holes over to my right.  I never met them and never even knew their names.  A number of ours were wounded, some severely.  The NVA dead numbered a couple of dozen. 
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Looking back, as unchanged an atheist now as I was then, I am still haunted sometimes by “survivor guilt”, a common feeling among combat vets, wondering why in hell I was spared while these other Marines were killed.  Should I, could I, have done something else?  Why did I survive?  Was it just luck that the NVA hit a bit to my right rather than coming over the top of me?  Haunting thoughts. 
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All in all, I put my survival down to dumb luck, mere chance – and an M-60 machine- gunner with balls of brass in a tower. 
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But don’t ever tell me that there are no atheists in foxholes. 
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-Zenwind.
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